When the phone rang on a September afternoon, University of Cincinnati's Shailaja Paik, PhD, tired from a full day of meetings and teaching, did not expect to hear news that would leave her “ears numb.” “I had been named a (MacArthur) fellow, and I wasn’t sure I was hearing correctly, but I tried to keep my cool,” she remembers, chuckling. “I thought, ‘Is this right? I’m going to ask her to repeat herself.’ “I was ecstatic.” The MacArthur Fellows Program, also ...

The genome inside each of our cells is modelled by tension and torsion — due in part to the activity of proteins that compact, loop, wrap and untwist DNA — but scientists know little about how those forces affect the transcription of genes. “There are a lot of mechanical forces at play all the time that we never consider, we have very little knowledge of, and they’re not talked about in textbooks,” said Laura Finzi, the Dr. Waenard L. Miller, Jr. ’69 and Sheila M. Miller Endowed Chair in Medical Biophysics at Clemson University. Transcription is the process by which a cell makes an RNA copy of a segment of DNA. One ...

This new model accounts for a wide range of ion-electrode interactions and predicts a device's ability to store electric charge. The model's theoretical predictions align with the experimental results. Data on the behaviour of the electric double layer (EDL) can aid in the development of more efficient supercapacitors for portable electronics and electric vehicles. The study has been published in ChemPhysChem. Many devices store energy for future use, with batteries being among the most well-known examples. They can consistently release energy, maintaining steady power output regardless of existing conditions or load, until fully ...

UK ParkRun participants report improved life satisfaction six months later, with most benefit for the least active people, and an estimated value between £16.70 and £98.50 for every £1 of running costs.  #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0003580 Article Title: The impact of parkrun on life satisfaction and its cost-effectiveness: A six-month study of parkrunners in the United Kingdom Author Countries: United Kingdom Funding: This study was funded by Sheffield Hallam University (SJH and AB) and by The University of Sheffield (HQ). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, ...

The voice people use to address their dogs isn’t just because of their big puppy eyes. Humans slow their own speech when talking to their dogs, and this slower tempo matches their pets’ receptive abilities, allowing the dogs to better understand their commands, according to a study published October 1st in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Eloïse Déaux of the University of Geneva in Switzerland and colleagues. Dogs respond to human speech, even though they themselves cannot produce human sounds. To better understand how people ...

Of current and former cheerleading athletes in Sweden, 29% reported being subjected to psychological abuse in the sport, according to a new study from Linköping University, Sweden. The study shows that dissatisfaction with leadership, injuries, high expectations and bad atmosphere in the team are major reasons why athletes give up the sport. “It’s similar to what we see in other sports: that it’s primarily psychological abuse that stands out,” says Carolina Lundqvist, docent in psychology and sports science and licensed psychotherapist at the Department of Behavioural Sciences at Linköping ...

The rise of authoritarian populism in Brazil weakened structures that stabilise democracy – mirroring trends in wider global society and potentially making it harder for the country to strengthen its democracy in future, a new study reveals.  The experiences of Brazilians in recent years under the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro highlight the weakening of welfare systems and human rights protections critical in maintaining democratic stability.  This, in turn, contributed to the rise of militarism ...

A new survey of climate experts reveals that a majority believes the Earth to be headed for a rise in global temperatures far higher than the 2015 Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to well-below 2°C. The study was published in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment. It also shows that two-thirds of respondents — all of them authors on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — believe we may succeed ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Anu™, a health and wellness brand developing innovative controlled-environment agriculture systems, won first place and $20,000 among 10 small businesses at the national SCORE 60th Anniversary Pitch Competition in Des Moines, Iowa. SCORE, or Service Corps of Retired Executives, is a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Purdue University alumni Scott Massey and Ivan Ball founded anu. The company has received financial support from the Purdue Research Foundation. “This funding ...

As artificial intelligence continues to expand its footprint across society, some researchers are raising questions about the potential negative impact of this technological transformation. Associate professor Mar Hicks and assistant professor Jess Reia of the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science are partnering with Tamara Kneese and the Data and Society Research Institute to examine this critical issue in a project that the National Science Foundation recently awarded a two-year, $300,000 grant. Working with the Data ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Using a sophisticated brain-imaging system, neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have successfully reactivated a specific memory circuit in mice, causing them to seek out shelter when no shelter is actually present. The researchers say the study, published Sept. 27 in Nature Neuroscience, advances understanding of how memories are structured in the mammalian brain. The findings could one day point to new ways of slowing down or preventing the memory loss that accompanies ...

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds, supports, connects and catalyzes the nation’s top PhD students in science and technology, today announced that Wendy Connors, currently its chief development officer, will begin as president on Jan. 1, 2025. Connors will succeed current president Robbee Baker Kosak, who will retire after almost 10 years in the role. Appointed by the Hertz Foundation board of directors, Connors is the sixth president of the foundation and second woman to hold the position since it was founded in 1957. She brings more than 25 years’ experience as an accomplished nonprofit executive ...

When millions of people went into lockdown during the pandemic, they went in search of new at-home hobbies to help cure their boredom. Among them was making sourdough bread. In addition to being sustainable for its use of natural ingredients and traditional methods which date back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, it also is valued for its nutritional benefits. For example, studies have shown that sourdough contains more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants compared to many other types of bread. For people with mild sensitivities to gluten, sourdough bread can be easier to digest since much of the gluten is broken down during ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – October 1, 2024) A revolution in biomedicine is currently underway, driven by the application of genome engineering tools such as the prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas9. New genome editing systems continue to be identified in different organisms, adding to the potential toolbox for various therapeutic applications. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital studied the evolutionary journey of Fanzors, eukaryotic genome-editing proteins. Using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), the researchers provided insights into the structural divergence ...

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital today announced  M. Madan Babu, PhD, FRS, as the institution’s first Chief Data Scientist, Senior Vice President for Data Science, and leader of the newly formed Office of Data Science. This $195 million research enterprise will have 115 new positions. In his new role, Babu will bring new, advanced computing technologies and data science approaches to biomedical research. His team will also facilitate the integration of biological and biomedical ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A first-of-its-kind study has measured the toxicity of several types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as “forever chemicals,” when mixed together in the environment and in the human body. The good news: Most of the tested chemicals’ individual cytotoxicity and neurotoxicity levels were relatively low.  The bad news: the chemicals acted together to make the entire mixture toxic. “Though they are structurally similar, not all forever chemicals are ...

SAN ANTONIO — October 1, 2024 — A Southwest Research Institute-led team has detected carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide for the first time on the frozen surface of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. These discoveries add to Charon’s known chemical inventory, previously identified by ground- and space-based observations, that includes water ice, ammonia-bearing species and the organic materials responsible for Charon’s gray and red coloration. “Charon is the only midsized Kuiper Belt object, in the range of 300 to 1,000 miles in diameter, that has been geologically mapped, thanks ...

The genetic confirmation of a suspected diagnosis of "hereditary colorectal cancer" is of great importance for the medical care of affected families. However, many of the variants identified in the known genes cannot yet be reliably classified in terms of their causal role in tumor formation. Under the leadership of the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, an international team of researchers has reassessed the medical relevance of a significant number of unclear variants and thus significantly ...

“We suggest that future therapeutic strategies targeting the oncogenic network of CDK4/6, MEK, PD-L1, and FOXM1 represent exciting future treatment options for MPNST patients.” BUFFALO, NY- October 1, 2024 – A new mini review was published in Oncotarget's Volume 15 on September 30, 2024, entitled, “Linking FOXM1 and PD-L1 to CDK4/6-MEK targeted therapy resistance in malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors.” As highlighted in the abstract of this paper, malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) are aggressive, Ras-driven sarcomas characterized ...

Researchers at McMaster University have identified a new therapeutic approach to preventing cancer from spreading to the brain.    In a new study, published recently in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, researchers Sheila Singh and Jakob Magolan discovered a critical vulnerability in metastatic brain cancer, which they say can be exploited with new drugs to prevent spread. Singh, a professor in McMaster’s Department of Surgery and director of the Centre for Discovery in Cancer Research, says brain metastases are becoming increasingly prevalent and are extremely fatal, with 90 per cent of patients dying within one ...

WASHINGTON, October 1, 2024 – Too warm with a jacket on but too cold without it? Athletic apparel brands boast temperature-controlling fabrics that adapt to every climate with lightweight but warm products. Yet, consider a fabric that you can adjust to fit your specific temperature needs. Inspired by the dynamic color-changing properties of squid skin, researchers from the University of California, Irvine developed a method to manufacture a heat-adjusting material that is breathable and washable and can be integrated into flexible fabric. They published their ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1, 2024 – Nuclear fission reactors act as a key power source for many parts of the world and worldwide power capacity is expected to nearly double by 2050. One issue, however, is the difficulty of discerning whether a nuclear reactor is being used to also create material for nuclear weapons. Capturing and analyzing antimatter particles has shown promise for monitoring what specific reactor operations are occurring, even from hundreds of miles away. In AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Sheffield and the University of Hawaii developed ...

In neuroscience and biomedical engineering, accurately modeling the complex movements of the human hand has long been a significant challenge. Current models often struggle to capture the intricate interplay between the brain's motor commands and the physical actions of muscles and tendons. This gap not only hinders scientific progress but also limits the development of effective neuroprosthetics aimed at restoring hand function for those with limb loss or paralysis. EPFL professor Alexander Mathis and his team have developed an AI-driven approach that ...

Patients who receive umbilical cord blood transplants for blood cancers now live equally long regardless of their race, new research from UVA Cancer Center shows. The findings, from UVA Health’s Karen Ballen, MD, and collaborators, suggests that a previously identified survival gap for Black recipients has closed and that overall survival for all recipients has increased.  The retrospective analysis looked at more than 2,600 adults and children with blood cancers who received cord blood between 2007 and 2017 ...

DALLAS, Oct. 1, 2024 – Strokes can strike at any age, challenging survivors to overcome physical, emotional and cognitive changes. Nominations are open now for the 2025 Stroke Hero Awards from the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, which is celebrating a century of lifesaving impact this year. The awards recognize stroke survivors, caregivers, advocates and experts making a difference in the stroke community. Every 40 seconds someone in the U.S. has a stroke[1], according to the American Heart Association’s 2024 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update. Nearly 1 in 4 stroke survivors face the ...